Abrams Trek review thread *HEAVY SPOILERS*

[Aquarius]

Sorry, I liked Scotty. I do feel like he needed to be featured more/given more to do, but like Doohan's version, he did prove himself to be king of the last-minute impossible beam-out. Three targets from two locations to one pad, baby!!

[justTripn]

I agree. The new Chekov and Sulu were authentic characters. Scotty seemed like a funny SNL impersonation of Scotty. A little too cartoonish. Kirk was perfect. I'm pretty happy with Spock too, who BTW is a Pittsburgher.

[Linda]

Well, no one can really replace Doohan as Scotty. Spock from Pittsburg, He might as well be now that Vulcan is gone. I didn't dislike any of the characters but I am still trying to decide how much they fit the mold of the originals. For that, I will have to rewatch the movie several times and that will probably be after the DVD comes out. And yes, I will buy it. What I really don't like is the whole change (wipe out) of ST history that KTR so well described. I suppose I am really hoping for that magic reset button in the second movie which will restore the ST timeline and bring Vulcan back into existance.

[Asso]

...What I really don't like is the whole change (wipe out) of ST history that KTR so well described. I suppose I am really hoping for that magic reset button in the second movie which will restore the ST timeline and bring Vulcan back into existance.

Once again, we have the same thoughts, Linda.

[Bether6074]

I never really watched TOS, so I don't have any protective feelings about it. As a casual viewer who doesn't really know the characters all that well, I thought this movie was a fun ride. I appreciated the brief escape from reality. I'm sure I might have thought differently if I'd watched TOS regularly.

[JadziaKathryn]

I'm sure I might have thought differently if I'd watched TOS regularly.

Exactly. I've not seen much TOS and am not hung up on seeing much, which might've freed me to enjoy this more.

[Alelou]

I knew TOS by heart. It was the first true love of my recurring bad case of Trekkiness. I can still identify many episodes by title and sometimes by the writer within just a few moments of hearing them from the other room. Often there doesn't even need to be any dialogue, I recognize the music.

But I loved the new movie, as Trek (though there are few things that bug me) and also just as a good movie. I loved some of the earlier Trek movies while recognizing that they were not something I would recommend to non-Trekkies. For instance, I enjoyed the first movie because it was at least Trek and I was desperate, but I also thought it sucked as a movie and would never recommend it to someone who didn't already know and love those characters. And the one I would have recommended most heartily to non-Trekkies, The Voyage Home, irritated me on many levels by trying to be a comedy at the expense of being Trek, and leaves me a little leery of the word or rumor that Nimoy is involved in writing the sequel of this one. (Then again, nothing was as awful as that one Shatner did.)

I think there are just two camps in Trekdom about the Abrams movie, and I don't think one's TOS credentials have that much to do with it.

C'est la vie, as we say on Earth.

[Linda]

It is NOT just TOS they wiped out. Without Vulcan, they have wiped out TNG, DS9, VOY, the Animated Series history, and all the other Star Trek movie history. They may not have wiped out ENT, but since they only made reference to Archer and Porthos, they don't seem to have counted it much in their AU. Abrams changes are wide sweeping and make me uneasy thought I did enjoy watching the movie.

[Alelou]

Well, again, I just think of it as an AU. To me, the others are still there, in their timeline.

[Asso]

It is NOT just TOS they wiped out. Without Vulcan, they have wiped out TNG, DS9, VOY, the Animated Series history, and all the other Star Trek movie history. They may not have wiped out ENT, but since they only made reference to Archer and Porthos, they don't seem to have counted it much in their AU. Abrams changes are wide sweeping and make me uneasy thought I did enjoy watching the movie.

Eh Eh... If you think I found the movie hardly ordinary, in addition,...

[Linda]

Still there in their own timeline (Alelou thoughts)...yep, best to think of it that way.

[WarpGirl]

I haven't seen the movie yet. I got sick! But I assumed it was an alternate timeline. You know how many times have they done this in ST. Everything goes right for a while, and then Zefrem Cochrane kills the Vucans in First Contact. Or Harry never gets assigned to VOY. George Kirk dies and so on... It doesn't wipe everything else out, at least if I understood it right it shouldn't. Then again, Daniels is confusing. I prefer Q's take on things.

[CX]

It really would have to be an AU to explain a lot of the other differences in the movie from the RU, such as Kelvin being so huge and Vulcan having a blue sky (among other things). Not to mention Nero's attack doesn't explain all the changes anyway, and frankly even the bits that take place in the 24th century don't make any sense either. Great, it's an AU, so why should anyone care about it anymore than any of the other AUs we saw over the run of the franchise, be it the MU or all those AUs from Parallels? I've never much cared for AUs, personally, because they're a distraction from the real story, and really they only ever do them so they can do stuff they're too afraid to do in the RU, for whatever reason (wusses). Of course even as just an origin movie, Abrams Trek still fails when you stand it up to others, like say Star Wars, The Matrix, or even Batman Begins. All of those transform a pathetic, selfish, and/or lost character into heros through them learning to sacrifice of themselves and learning that whatever cause they end up joining is more important than themselves. Abrams Trek doesn't do that. Instead, Kirk i an arrogant prick of a cadet, and they reward his arrogance by doing the most absurd ting possible - slapping captain's stripes on a cadet and giving a man with zero experience command of the Federation flagship. And really, Abrams Trek tends to ignore the Federation and Starfleet as much as possible. In Star Wars, Luke has both the Jedi religion and the Rebel Alliance, in The Matrix, Neo has the human resistance and the crew he ended up with, and in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne has family, friends, and the whole of Gotham City. Kirk basically just has himself in Abrams Trek, and really they make the movie all about him and how he's supposed to be captain of the Enterprise. That's the same exact contrivance I hated about Archer and how he was supposed to be such an awesome guy, but was really an inept, arrogant, asshole loser that no one in their right mind would want to follow.

[WarpGirl]

Like I said I haven't seen it yet. So I'll reserve judgement, I don't mind AU's one way or another. Sometimes they're just great for a laugh. But everything you've said about Archer is just PERFECT!!!!!!!

[Alelou]

I think maybe in this AU they noticed:

1. This arrogant prick James Kirk had just saved the entire planet by being really smart and by refusing to take no for an answer.

2. In the process he also won the loyalty of his crew and the approval of a couple of older officers whose judgment they trust.

2. They just lost nearly an entire class of cadets and ship's crews so they ain't exactly swimming in qualified personnel.

It is still surprising they made him captain so quickly, but we also don't know exactly how much time passed between the final showdown and that scene where he relieves Pike. I would also assume that outside of the stunt he pulled with the Kobayashi Maru, he was shining in his other Starfleet work.

Besides, canon never did quite explain how he got past that stunt to make it to captain in the first place -- and Shatner's Kirk never struck me as lacking in arrogance. Kirk was far cockier than Archer. (But at least he was also smarter.)